This past spring, what with the unceasing rain, one of our hens caught a cold and never recovered. It was a bit sad, but there was a good side: I figured out how to keep the pen drier so the girls wouldn’t get soaked to the skin every time it rained. They could easily stay inside the coop whenever it rained, but they were apparently eager, no matter what the weather, to spend time out of doors. I bought a piece of roofing to cover the open pen; and then, since most of our weather comes from the north/northwest, I fixed a large tarp across the back of the north side of the pen. It made a big difference, and I was no longer greeted on rainy days by drippy hens.
The girls seem healthier now than ever before. They are laying large numbers of eggs, and their combs are full and red. In fact, after a long, dry patch that lasted at least a year, we have seen Nora’s pale pink, wizened comb turn soft, red and fertile again. She’s laying eggs now at least every other day. Dora’s comb has grown so big that it covers almost her entire head and makes her look like she’s wearing a red baseball cap. Nora and Dora are black-and-white Hamburgs, and they lay creamy white, angular, medium-sized eggs. The five Golden Buffs, Daisy, Maizey, Maggie, Goldie and Glorie, lay extra-large, extra-round, brown eggs. The two lighter-colored Golden Buffs, Maizey and Maggie, are probably the ones whose eggs are slightly chalky in appearance.
What do our hens eat? They get approximately 5 cups daily of an organic, grain-based feed that my father obtains from an outfit in Hillsborough, NJ. Besides that, they get major amounts of leftovers from the cutting board. On any given day, these might include apple cores, beet greens, stale sunflower seeds, leftover salmon skin (from special dinners), watermelon rinds, the seed mass from inside cantaloupes and honeydews, tops and seeds from sweet peppers, or cucumber ends. I toss in things like stale bread and moldy muffins. After Passover this past spring, they ate all the leftover matzah.
The girls are let out of the coop (with its attached pen) every afternoon for 2-3 hours, and that’s when they get their fill of bugs, grubs, greens, weeds, and worms. They hang around when I garden to grab any worms I unearth in the process of digging and turning the soil.
What do they seem to like best? The same thing as human beings, oddly enough. Or not. They love the sweet stuff. They fight over strawberry tops and melons, and they look amusingly ghoulish as they cannibalize melons and race away to enjoy their bounty, the long, ragged strings of seeds and fruit dripping from their mouths. They vie with each other for an ideal spot when grain is being tossed into the pen. Sometimes somebody gets pecked and lets out a big squawk, but usually they behave well enough.
They are also partial to protein. They fight with one another to be the lucky recipient of fish skin, and they have behaved similarly on the rare occasions that I have brought them leftover hamburger. We have a family policy never to feed them leftover chicken, the reasons for which seem obvious.
I know that they need greens, and I’ve seen them eating them, but never with relish. Maybe greens are an acquired taste, or maybe they just aren’t as delicious as protein or sweet. All I know is, it reminds me of people. A friend of mine recently shared that she requires her children to eat their vegetable course (served first) before the rest of the meal. Her kids are beautiful, healthy and slender. I’m just saying… Anyway, sometimes I toss grain on the crabgrass growing around the edges of my fenced garden. Then the chickens get their greens, and I get some help with the weeding. They also get plenty of greens from the kitchen in the form of outer lettuce leaves, wilted salads, and fading cole slaw, but they always eat it last.
This brings me to Dr. Niva Shapira, from Tel Aviv University, whose recently published article in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry explains how a hen’s feed affects the quality of her eggs. Dr. Shapira’s research indicates that hens fed a diet high in wheat, barley and sorghum (another grain) produce eggs much lower in omega-6’s and with much larger amounts of anti-oxidants than hens fed a cheaper diet consisting mainly of soy- and corn-based products.
Dr. Shapira showed that daily consumption of two standard, commercial eggs increased LDL cholesterol oxidation by 40 percent over eating eggs from hens eating the better quality feed. In North America (but not in Europe by the way), corn- and soy-based chicken feed usually make up the bulk of commercial hens’ diets. Looks like your health is on your hen’s plate, too.
For now, many of us are limited to what’s available at the supermarket. But when you do buy eggs, pick the expensive “high omega-3” eggs. Even if they cost more than the standard, commercial eggs, they are still some of the cheapest high-quality protein available. And worth every extra penny. If you don’t spend it on food now, you’ll spend it on medicine later.